This section combines a class hierarchy overview with introductions to commonly used classes and, by way of example, the recommended coding idioms.
Concepts and classes:
The AnalysisApplication is the entry point to the class hierarchy:
- Spotfire Application
The AnalysisApplication represents a running Spotfire instance. It has methods to open and save a document, and provides access to application level services and tools.
- Spotfire Document
The Document orders runtime objects into an object graph. It provides access to all nodes in the application.
- Spotfire Data
Data is represented as a set of tables in the DataManager. It is similar to a relational database, but is cached in memory and optimized for speed. Relations between tables are explicitly defined.
- Spotfire Filters
Filters are used to select subsets of rows in tables. There is usually one filter per column. The Filter Panel uses a defined set of filters called a filtering scheme, but several filtering schemes may coexist.
- Spotfire Pages
Pages contain visuals and panels. A visual displays a particular view of the data, while a panel manipulates the state of data.
- Spotfire Visualization
Visualizations display particular views of the data. When a visualization is created, it is not configured to the data.
- Spotfire Axis Expressions
Expressions may define calculations used in the axes of visualizations. They are often referred to as dynamic, since the expressions are recalculated based on changes to the analysis.
- Spotfire Axis Formatting
Axes formatting can be locally overridden in graphical visualizations and in the cross table. The short number formatting enables the use of magnitude symbols to minimize the space consumed.